Speaker: Prof. Xianhui Bu, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, California State University

Date/Time: 10:30 AM, Dec. 26, 2018

Location: Room 202, Lujiaxi Building

Abstract:

Homochiral crystalline porous materials (H-CPM) have potential applications in a range of size and enantioselective separations because they integrate uniform pore size, high surface area, and homochirality. Currently, nearly all research activities aimed at the synthesis of H-CPM rely on the incorporation of enantiopure molecules onto the porous framework to impart homochirality to the crystalline solid (collectively called as the chirality inclusion method here). This method is limited by the the type and variety of enantiopure ligands that also tend to have high cost and low availability. We have made multiple significant advances in this area by developing new synthetic strategies and novel structural concepts such as integrative pillaring and templating and first-ever observation of diastereoisomerism in isoreticular MOFs. In addition, we have also pioneered the chirality induction method that is totally different from the chirality inclusion method. The chirality induction method seeks to construct H-CPM entirely from diverse achiral building units while controlling absolute chirality by using inexpensive and often naturally occurring enantiopure chiral induction agents as catalysts.